Agricultural, commercial, and domestic irrigation systems are commonly constructed of fixed piping that depend on a single source for delivery of water to the entire system. The flow in a given pipeline is limited by its length, diameter, internal surface condition, and fluid pressure. Thus, for any single fluid source the flow in a pipeline is not expandable beyond a given length or number of fluid delivery terminals such as a sprinkler head. Thus, expansion of fluid delivery coverage is difficult, costly, and commonly involves addition of additional source controls and pipe.
Adding new pipe runs has the added difficulty of requiring costly trenching and cutting or circumventing pavement such as sidewalks, roads, driveways, and patios. More importantly, should all the control circuits be utilized in the existing system, expansion will require addition of a new or additional timing mechanism further increasing the cost, maintenance, and difficulty of operating the system.
Further, installation of long piping runs with more than one flow control valve involves installation of long electrical runs to service solenoids that may be distant from the electrical source. This adds significantly to the cost of expanding an existing irrigation system and results in increased maintenance needs.
Current irrigation systems switch between multiple irrigation runs by using an electronic clock system that signals solenoids placed on remote valves to activate or shut off water flow through each respective valve. This system organization requires installation of electrical cables from the clock system to each solenoid valve. Thus, both flow control and a timer control mechanisms are required to distribute a single source of water through a system of lines. This multiple control system is costly to purchase and install. Further, expansion of the existing system requires additional trenching to install new electric lines to regulate new valve systems.
Prior art solutions to the above problems employed various schemes that used an impeller driven rotating plate with an orifice or cam that sequentially opened radially positioned ports. Such a device is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 6,539,967, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. These devices suffer from numerous drawbacks including water hammering due to slow activation or deactivation of the output valves and difficult or absent timing adjustment. Devices that provided timing adjustment required a difficult and awkward process of changing the cams within the mechanism, thus requiring shutting down the system and professional adjustment.
Installation of prior art water distribution systems requires replacing or removing existing valve systems and replacing them with a complicated control device. The complexity of the prior art control devices requires precise manufacturing standards to ensure functionality and results in increased cost of purchase, operation, and maintenance, thus, increasing warranty replacement costs and detrimentally affecting customer goodwill.
Thus, there exists a need for a fluid control device capable of expanding fluid delivery area in an existing system, utilizing an existing timing control or requiring no timing control, and is suitable for installation at a location distant from an electrical source.